Ants Best Humans At Test of Collective Intelligence (science.org) 51
Christie Wilcox reports via Science.org: Both longhorn crazy ants (Paratrechina longicornis) and humans can figure out how to work together to move an unwieldy object through a series of obstacles. So scientists pitted the two against each other. They had individuals and groups of different sizes of both species maneuver a T-shaped object through holes in walls (as seen in the video above), both of which were scaled to the body size of the participants. This kind of puzzle is hard for ants because their pheromone-based communication doesn't account for the kind of geometry needed to get the object through the doors. To make the experiments even more comparable, the team also took away the humans' communication in some of the trials by making them wear sunglasses and masks and forbidding talking and gestures. So the people, like the ants, had to work together without language, relying on the forces generated by their fellow participants to figure out how to move the T-shaped piece.
The groups of ants were much better at solving the puzzle than individual ants, exhibiting what the researchers described as "emergent" collective memory -- an intelligence greater than the sum of its parts. The groups of humans, on the other hand, often didn't do better when working together, especially if they weren't allowed to talk. In fact, multiple people sometimes performed worse than individuals -- and worse than the ants. The researchers posit that, in the absence of the ability to discuss and debate, individuals attempt to reach a consensus quickly rather than fully assessing the problem. This "groupthink," they suggest, leads people toward fruitless "greedy" efforts where they directly pull the T toward the gaps in the wall, rather than the less obvious, correct solution of pulling the object into the space between first. Whereas the ants "excel in cooperation," they write, humans need to be able to talk through their reasoning to avoid simply going with what they think the crowd wants. The study has been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The groups of ants were much better at solving the puzzle than individual ants, exhibiting what the researchers described as "emergent" collective memory -- an intelligence greater than the sum of its parts. The groups of humans, on the other hand, often didn't do better when working together, especially if they weren't allowed to talk. In fact, multiple people sometimes performed worse than individuals -- and worse than the ants. The researchers posit that, in the absence of the ability to discuss and debate, individuals attempt to reach a consensus quickly rather than fully assessing the problem. This "groupthink," they suggest, leads people toward fruitless "greedy" efforts where they directly pull the T toward the gaps in the wall, rather than the less obvious, correct solution of pulling the object into the space between first. Whereas the ants "excel in cooperation," they write, humans need to be able to talk through their reasoning to avoid simply going with what they think the crowd wants. The study has been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Unfair (Score:2)
"both of which were scaled to the body size of the participants."
Everybody knows ants have more power for their size than (animals bigger than insects)
Re: (Score:3)
Ants are collectively unselfish. Ants act in the interest of the greater good.
Humans? The attributes that selected for homo sapiens domination of competitors seems to have limited our propensity to prosper beyond a certain point.
Re: (Score:2)
Ants are collectively unselfish. Ants act in the interest of the greater good.
Few people would want to live like ants, with little agency over their lives.
Re: (Score:2)
We'd need better pheromones too
We're actually a collective species (Score:2, Insightful)
So for example it's incredibly easy to turn individual groups of people against other groups of people. When you see a ruling class that's not people rising to the top through competition that's people who have figured out how to divide the underclass into vario
Re: (Score:2)
Blah blah blah
Meanwhile the summary indicates the opposite. Ants worked well collectively while the humans did not. Not that anyone of that has to do with class warfare or CEO pay.
Re:Unfair (Score:5, Insightful)
Ants are collectively unselfish. Ants act in the interest of the greater good.
The cells of a human body are collectively unselfish. Human body cells (excepting tumors) act in the interest of the greater good.
If you want to compare human behavior with ant behavior, the thing to compare against a human is the entire ant colony... and ant colonies are known for occasionally going to war against each other, particular when competing for resources.
Re: (Score:1)
I agree. Humans suck, and we've somehow made it a lot further than we should for such a selfish species.
Re: (Score:2)
Next up, Reddit for ants.
Re: (Score:3)
How about an array of ants? We could call it RAID
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think ants are particularly fond of Raid.
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The ant echo chamber. Any criticism of ants will get you banned. /r/antlions is banned.
Re: (Score:3)
First, we are not clones. If the ants weren't they'd behave differently.
Sci-Fi reference: You see, dear bugger (ala OSC), we are all a hive with a single member. Every death of a human is a cessation of an unique genetic line, whereas in your case only killing the queen matters. This fundamental difference informs the behavioral differences between your hive and ours.
Secondly, we people are the ultimate champions of cooperating in large groups. No other animal comes even close. All of us are descendants of
Re:Unfair (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder what's next in this exciting line of research: bats better than blindfolded humans at finding things?
Re: (Score:1)
Exactly.
Take away the advantage of human intelligence and, surprise! They get beat.
Nothing to see here except bad science.
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So they showed that humans are terrible at communicating with scents and have no antennae.
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To make this REALLY fair, they should've cut off four of each ant's legs!
Re: (Score:2)
This is called "scaling". Any comparison between a small animal and large animal using physical properties of each will be misleading and wrong. Where do these clowns come up with this kind of nonsense research? Maybe it was a government sponsored study. :(
Re: (Score:3)
Everybody knows ants have more power for their size
Watch the video. It was not a test of strength.
But it was a stupid test. The humans were prohibited from talking or gesturing, while inter-ant communication was unrestricted.
All it showed is that humans don't have group intelligence when mechanisms for group intelligence are prohibited.
Not really. (Score:3)
To summarize, emergent cognitive faculties allow large ant groups to employ a heuristic that is reminiscent of the well-known “right-hand rule,” in which, upon entering a maze, the solver slides their right hand along the wall and proceeds forward without changing their direction.
Simple cognition follows simple rules.
Obviously they put restrictions on what people can do. They even tested with and without restricted communication. They didn't have group of humans on a similar scale as the ants and they didn't allow for someone to act as a scout/director.
There is value to this study but idea that ants have superior collective intelligence is click-bait BS that completely discounts the fact that humans organize differently than ants.
Cool (Score:2)
Who'da thunk it. (Score:2)
Umm.... [images.nightcafe.studio]
Re: (Score:2)
Agile? (Score:5, Funny)
When the ants encountered a problem, their solution didn't start with "We need a Jira subscription."
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Then again, if you take the time it took and multiple by *all* of the ants/people present, then it took fewer ant/person hours for the humans.
Re: (Score:2)
No, they threw an OUT OF CHEESE error and demanded the FTB module be reinstalled.....
Sounds like a better society than we have now. (Score:5, Funny)
The researchers posit that, in the absence of the ability to discuss and debate, individuals attempt to reach a consensus quickly rather than fully assessing the problem. This "groupthink," they suggest, leads people toward fruitless "greedy" efforts where they directly pull the T toward the gaps in the wall, rather than the less obvious, correct solution of pulling the object into the space between first. Whereas the ants "excel in cooperation," they write, humans need to be able to talk through their reasoning to avoid simply going with what they think the crowd wants.
I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords. They seem to be focused on an existence of cooperation and less hive-mind thinking.
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I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords. They seem to be focused on an existence of cooperation and less hive-mind thinking.
Isn't hive-mind thinking the social insects' primary MO?
Priceless statement from the paper (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Probably cocaine.
Either that, or Chef's Chocolate Salty Balls, I'm not sure!
Re: (Score:2)
A piece of candy...oh piece of candy...
So what? (Score:2)
I’d like to see how they would perform if they went up against creatures that are many times smarter than humans. Like dolphins or lizards for example.
Dumb (Score:3)
Humans are not good at working together when you take away their ability to communicate with each other?! Nobody could have foreseen this.
So it's possible to devise a test (Score:3)
in which ants can beat humans. OK wow.
Ants can lift several hundred times their body weight, humans can't. Why would we expect human strength to scale proportionally to their size?
Some animals are stronger than humans, some can fly, some can swim better than humans. There are examples all over the animal kingdom, of animals that can outperform humans in various tasks. Yes, even ants.
If you're going to say that ants are smarter than humans, it's time for them to start paying taxes.
Re: (Score:2)
No taxation without represANTation!
Humans in groups are not smart (Score:3)
Individuals may be smart or not, but humans in groups are generally not smart at all except when very carefully selected.
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Individuals may be smart or not, but humans in groups are generally not smart at all except when very carefully selected.
Have you met my friend Agent K?
On the other hand: Crowdsourcing.
Solo? (Score:2)
I suspect humans would beat them soundly at independent actions
After We Blow It All Up (Score:2)
Nuclear or biological, asteroid or virus...
Nature will start over again.
Probably with the bees.
Find gate. Open gate. Close gate. Run run run!
Propoganda (Score:2)
This is obviously just "scare" news,
stirring up anti-bug sentiment.
They're not coming for us.
WOULD YOU LIKE TO LEARN MORE?
Language (Score:2)
Ants are smarter than humans, because humans assume ants have no "language", and devise comparative studies based on that, in order to prove...I'm not sure what the point is supposed to be?
Re: (Score:2)
The point is... the researchers need additional funding!
Deport the Ants at once (Score:1)
US: Deport the ants !!
UK: Ban myrmecophobia (ant-o-phobia) !!
Protect the queen! (Score:2)
centralized behavior without homunculus (Score:2)
Ants don't have opposable thumbs (Score:2)